Page 423 of Bride of Choice

I’d let Mama’s words guide me to the complete and total destruction of my own sense of self, and in some ways my soul. I can never get any of it back, or take back the horrible things I did, telling myself it would all work out in the end if I just held on, in the name of some warped idea of love.

Mama’d died the same fate I’d feared for myself with George— at the hands of the abuser she was too scared to leave, a man she thought she’d nab up, lock in, then change to suit her. An endless parade of crappy men, looking for a diamond in a bag of coal.

This devil, however… I knew better now. I don’t care how heavenly he smells.

“Hey, twiggy! You comin’ or do we need to come shovel you out?!” Joanie called out after me.

“Coming!” I squeaked, to rush off.

I have no idea what had come over me that day I saved Joanie. I’d been terrified. That Krampus was vicious. I had this horrible flashback of what had happened to me with George and, I don’t know, I just- I couldn’t just stand there and watch. I couldn’t let her die like that. I’d just… snapped.

And I’m so thankful I could save her.

“Think she’s stuck?” I heard her ask someone, and I started to run towards the house as fast as I could in this snowy muck piling up around me. She may sound like she’s a big old pile of sarcasm and I don’t care but Joanie cared. She could be loud and what Gram-grams would have called snark incarnate, but she cared and it showed. Buu adored her. So did her other mates. Even that nitpicky Rek beast.

I wonder what he’d think if I admitted he made me think a lot of Gram-grams and Gigi?

Nah, best not. I wanted to stay here, after all.

Some things were better left unsaid.

As I reached the front door, I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder one last time.

Perhaps I was just seeing things, but I’d swear I stared into the abyss and the devil’s eyes, however briefly, flashed back at me from the dark.

Chapter 52

Joanie

Spying Buu sitting outside, eyeing the forest and the muddy ground around him as he sorted through the fronds we’d collected for basket weaving, and by we I mean he mostly collected because he thinks I might hurt myself this far along, I gave him a gentle nudge.

“You’re contemplative. Quieter than usual. You okay?” I met Buu’s gaze, offering him a smile.

He smiled back but he looked like he had something on his mind.

Rek, my forever shadow, much improved from some homemade juice, ahem, and plenty of mate cuddling TLC, glanced up from the loom he was repairing. “Buu misses caves home sometimes.” Using a tool to hammer the pieces of wood he’d fixed back together, he gruntingly told us, “No worries you peekaboobs. Rek fix it. Buu not want leave my Jojomine.”

Buu and I glanced between each other. “Buu not leave Joalee,” Buu replied softly.

“Buu never, ever want to,” Rek informed him confidently. The look he leveled on him said, Or else. God, I loved my crazy sock monkey.

Buu smiled in the face of that look, zero offense taken.

I grinned at the exchange.

Setting down the loom, Rek held a hand out for me and jerked his chin at Buu. “Come. Celuk finish with Rek when my Jojo spends time with dummy head and Goober. Says Rek show Buu and my Jojo when Rek ready.”

“You all and your secrets,” I muttered, but happily took his hand and let him help me up.

We didn’t end up going very far.

Rek walked the few feet over to the stump hiding the ruins of our lovenest and lifted the hatch. “Rek go first, then my Jojomine, then Buu,” he instructed.

My heart gave a little trill. They’d cleaned it up in here and fixed it up?

“Candy-ass help, too, when Celuk and Rek ask for help,” Rek added. With a snort, he added, “She not much help.”

“You know she hates when you call her that,” I pointed out.

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